Eels kick off tour with a Valentine's Day blast

Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER

The man they call E fronting his band in Santa Ana. Photo: Kelly A. Swift, for the Register. Click for more.

It probably wasn’t the smartest move for Mark Oliver Everett to have picked Valentine’s Day for the opening of his latest tour with long-running band Eels.

Any other night this week and they likely would have packed the Observatory, a venue the man called E and his loyal cohorts have routinely filled for such launches going back to when this was still the decrepit Galaxy Theatre. Instead, the place was half-empty at best, enthusiastic acolytes crowding the pit but otherwise leaving the rest of the venue sparsely dotted.

(Frankly, it was livelier in the Constellation Room down the hall, where the cooler kids were crammed to hear suddenly buzzing L.A. band Foxygen – bolstered by a justifiable Pitchfork rave for their second psychedelic pastiche, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic – plus an intriguingly shadowy turn from Wampire and some convoluted noise-pop from headliner Unknown Mortal Orchestra.)

Then again, maybe a smaller crowd is what Everett wanted before facing a larger audience tonight at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, not to mention dates extending into April stops across Europe, all behind yet another fine Eels album, Wonderful, Glorious. It’s the group’s 10th disc and most agreeable since Souljacker and Shootenanny! earned raves roughly a decade ago, and ahead of dropping earlier this week it came talked up as a return-to-form, teeming with grittier fretwork, gruffer vocals and a renewed sense of purpose to E’s songwriting.

Nonsense. It’s another solid batch, much of it immediately satisfying when so much Eels music takes time to sink in. Yet it’s structurally no different from 2009’s Hombre Lobo, once again split almost evenly between his principal modes: fuzzed-up stompers, like the lead-off “Bombs Away” (also his opening track Thursday night) or the promising strutter “Peach Blossom,” and delicate, bittersweet lovelies, like one of his most effectively drawn romantic scenarios, the fateful “Accident Prone.”

He still has years ahead before his catalog will reach the volume of, say, what Tom Waits has crafted since the ’70s, but Everett’s Eels work, similarly marked by a distinctive grumbling voice, is much like his forebear’s consistent pattern – in that each new trove is scarcely different from the ones that preceded it.

Sometimes they sprawl a little (OK, a lot) longer, as with 2005’s Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, a rich but overabundant compendium that’s a dozen minutes longer than his hand-picked 24-track retrospective Meet the Eels – and nearly as long as Thursday night’s show entirely. Yet, whether long-winded or brief, E’s collections always reflect his mood swings and transformative life changes.

His haunting 1998 masterpiece Electro-Shock Blues, for instance, found him facing family suicides and cancerous deaths, while his recent triptych – Hombre Lobo was instantly followed by the sadder End Times and the cloud-clearing Tomorrow Morning – chronicled crushing heartbreak and the resurrection of spirit that comes from falling in love with someone new.

He’s nothing if not autobiographical, even in rare moments when he wears masks – and his music, neo-traditionalist but innovative like Beck, as plainspoken as Springsteen, remains edgy and engaging no matter his mental state There’s ever-present emotional instability in almost everything he does, even on pieces as pleasingly simplistic as “I Like Birds” or as ebullient as “Saturday Morning,” and the new slow one he offered Thursday, “On the Ropes,” suggests he pulled a Bonnie Raitt and found love in the nick of time.

But ultimately Wonderful, Glorious (his fifth disc for Vagrant Records) is a more-of-the-same set that gratefully catches him on an upswing, a relative cheerfulness coursing through the songs as it did his demeanor at the Observatory, where more than a few times he deadpanned to his band, at one point taking time for all five players to swap Valentine’s presents (E got a pink teddy bear, drummer Knuckles a stuffed dog, guitarist P-Boo a giraffe in a box.)

Unlike previous Eels shows at this Santa Ana space, this one was less a study of his psyche (already done to varying extremes) than it was merely a batch of great songs delivered by first-rate players, including devoted instrumentalist The Chet, who had a spot with his fellow guitarists on a rear riser, while E and Knuckles appeared on stage-front platforms. All of them were clad in black Adidas track suits and shades.

Virtually the whole of Wonderful, Glorious was tucked into the set list, much of it worthy of a highlight reel, especially the grinder “New Alphabet” and the groove ’n’ shout of the title track, which tops another darkly seductive howl (“Fresh Blood”) by inserting a marvelously harmonious Beach Boys interlude into its middle. Yet none of that provided any pervasive theme.

Instead, it felt like Eels were only aiming to step out of their rehearsal space and shake out these new tunes alongside some fan faves, like “Dog Faced Boy,” zippy renditions of “Souljacker Part I” and “The Sound of Fear,” and a ripping mash-up of “My Beloved Monster” and “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues.”

That last blast garnered a group hug when it ended, underscoring the overall point: this was only meant to be fun, right down to rollicking covers of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” and the Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park.” Highly joyful, it also was a mildly shocking and welcome development from typically doleful Mr. Everett.

And if you stuck around long enough, you got an extra treat: As they’re wont to do, E and his quartet returned for a third encore a few minutes after the house lights came up and most of the crowd had dispersed. A couple dozen die-hards stuck around to start a pogo party in the pit for two more nuggets, then left elated.

Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Eels drummer Knuckles at the Observatory Thursday night. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Eels kick off their latest tour at the Observatory Thursday night. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
On the barricade: Adriana and Kevin of Pomona pose for a photo before seeing Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Steve and Rachel of Orange pose for a photo before seeing Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Fullerton fans Amy and Maddy pose for a photo before seeing Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Nicole Atkins opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Nicole Atkins opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Nicole Atkins opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Nicole Atkins opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Nicole Atkins opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Air Guitar star Six String General (Tim Granlund) opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Air Guitar star Six String General (Tim Granlund) opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Air Guitar star Six String General (Tim Granlund) opens for Eels at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Eels perform at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Eels perform at the Observatory Thursday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of Eels, performs at the Observatory Thursday night at the kickoff of his new tour behind just-released album 'Wonderful, Glorious.' KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER

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